After our recent employee left the company, we were left with a couple of difficult projects that were running badly, mainly through poor management and communication.

Two of these we’ve completed already – a 3^rd completed today.

In our line of work it’s a necessity to keep all parties in the loop to maintain the project integrity – there’s too much ‘one upmanship’ between the egos of some of the protagonists and so things can go south rather quickly.

It’s imperative that all interested parties know who is doing what and the point at which they are at doing it.

In this case though, the problems stemmed from two major issues:

1. Lack of communication (within R&A and with the client)
2. Lack of documentation

In the first instance the client communicated his ideas, preferences and needs to us via our previous employee, who neglected to communicate that to the rest of the team.

This was compounded by the second instance as there was no record of any of these being discussed or planned beforehand.

Marking a huge deviation in the processes we have developed over the years for managing exactly the issues raised above, I am still at a loss as to why these procedures were not followed!

This resulted in much unhappiness all round ~ both we, and the client were not happy.
Furthermore this almost began the first salvos of a legal case!

Not good…

Well, today we finally completed the project

After long discussions (and the patience of the client who took the time to explain things a second time – and I duly documented them!), things were finally put to bed.

The end result was a happy client (eventually) – a reduced bill from us (we took responsibility for some of the problems) and a much reduced stress level!

Just a couple of minor bugs and we are home and dry!

YEAH!!!!!! 

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Now I’m not one to moan – as you dear reader will likely know – but today was a difficult day.

The major headache was trying to get Apple stuff to use Demon Internet’s email system – what a PITA!!!

Firstly I had it working the other day and the iPad decided that it would not send – then not receive, then neither, then not send…
Great ~ how could that possibly be??
Well; today it came to a head and I braved the international joys of Demon Internet’s support.
Surprisingly they were actually quite useful and helpful, something I was not expecting!

Suffice to say that eventually we maanged to get the iPad conencting…
… to the catch all account
Sigh – not what this was needing
Phones back to someone else
Gets the iPad connected to the correct account
Now the Mac has an issue – can’t send, then can’t receive, then both
Sigh
More international joy
Finally gets it working

Joy

#Note#
for anyone reading this wanting the correct settings it’s as follows:

incoming mail server – pop3.demon.co.uk
Username – the bit before the @ symbol and +catchall account name including the ‘+’ symbol (i.e. mail+catchall)
Password – the catchall account password
Port – 110
SMTP – post.demon.co.uk
Port – 25

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Most of the tech websites are speculating on what Apple will do about it’s latest iPhone offering.

Personally i think anything less than a total recall of the phones, and a reissue with the problem fixed, will be an insult to the “People of the Apple Cult”.

It seems to me that little else is of interest to some techies than what Apple decide to do next. This IMHO is a little ridiculous.
Apple have a great perchant for creating stunning design, great advertising, and providing middle of the road products. All at a stupidly high cost. This is great branding though – create such a frenzied desire for your products and the great unwashed (literally in some of the Apple fanboy cases) will flock to buy, even if the product is rubbish/over priced.

HELLO PUBLIC – IT’S A PHONE!!
For goodness sakes – there are quite a few on the market you know..!

From time to time, doing what I do, I come across people who blindly believe that everything Apple do is touched by magic :dizzy:  . These people are the sadly deluded, and gifted more in the wallet than the skull methinks…
The truth is (IMHO) SOME apple products are great – though I’d struggle to name them – the PCs used by some of my design clients are fairly good, but i struggle to see what extra you are gaining over a suitably equipped PC (for about 2/3 of the price).

People tell me that “they just work” – not true when seen from this side of the fence.
I can tell you of quite a few clients who have had to buy 2 or 3 replacement Mac products whilst their 5-6 years old PCs soldier on, day after day.

This debacle over the iPhone 4 proves my point (for those residing in news-proof caves, the iPhone has a problem with it’s internal aerial meaning it has very poor reception in some cases, unless held in the correct position ). THE IPHONE 4 IS CURRENTLY RUBBISH!
Though this minor fact won’t have any effect on the sales, as some pundits are speculating. Most Apple fanboys are, at best, ill informed, and will simply buy the latest offering regardless. The fact that it doesn’t work won’t matter…

I’ll expect the heavy mob round soon…
Pointing out the Emperor’s new clothes is never popular…

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Unless you live in a cave without power and WiFi, you’ll be aware that the current chancellor – one George Osborne MP – has delivered an ‘Emergency’ budget statement.

Amongst some interesting measures, several will effect the UK SME market in some unsettling ways.

Upping the CGT (Capital Gains Tax) will have an impact for those who will hit the threshold, and those who have to fill out the tax returns; A rate change half way through the year makes for some interesting calculations

Upping the VAT rate from 17.5% to 20% will hit consumers mainly, and might actually fuel a buying frenzy, if people try to get things in before the rate hike. It’s also going to effect those with automated invoicing and accounting packages which will need to be updated.

There are a few other points, but this is a blog about Rochester & Associates Ltd not finance!

It seems from my vaunted viewpoint, that this budget will damage an already fragile marketplace.
We have found over the past year or so, businesses have been increasingly nervous about the future.

There is one huge positive in my eyes though – remember this: Broadband Tax and Unfair Broadband Tax?
Well, you’ll be glad to know that this ridiculous idea has gone the way of the dodo – kaput – ceased to exist.
GOOD!

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Chain Telecom are getting annoying at the moment – out of the blue, they decided to start charging for our 0845 number. Something that has cost neither us, nor our customers anything (other than the local call cost).
Despite being a ‘Communications’ company, and us being a long term client, they seem unable to communicate – threatening to cut our lines if the £14 bill isn’t paid.

All we want is clarification – something they seem unable to provide…

If suddenly our telephone number has issues, you’ll know why…

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Broadband tax condemned as ‘unfair’ by MPs

I have posted on this topic a few times now, ranting about the stupidity of this ridiculous charge.

Now it seems that there is a government committee that seems to think this is true too.

All at once I’m in agreement with an aspect of the government!

Taxing those with a fixed telephone line to pay for ‘super fast’ broadband is such a stupid idea, whoever proposed it wants a good kicking.

The people it will effect are the people who WON’T get the benefit. Either they already have broadband or have chosen not to take the plunge (and probably run their houses with steam power )

I do believe, when I was a younger chap, that the government were warned that privatising the telecommunications industry was a bad idea, and that profits would come before quality of service.

This tax has come about because BT and the telecom industry have said they don’t have the money to upgrade the UKs Internet infrastructure.

Maybe they could reinvest some of the £547M toward paying the tax; which experts estimate will only generate £175M- about 32% of BTs profit for the 2008-2009 period (bear in mind that the profits BT announced were down by 45% from the previous period, a whopping £991M)

From these figures, we can ascertain that it would take BT 5-8 years to pay for the upgrade if they were to invest all their profits toward this goal (BT estimate that it’ll cost about £5 Billion to do the job)

All these huge figures all seem a nonsense though – I can’t even imagine £1 Billion

Rant over – bedtime…

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